


want to make it better but i can't begin to-

by neostigmine



Series: we'll write another story, we're fine [1]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person, Post-Canon, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, other characters are mentioned but not mentioned enough to get actually tagged, spoilers for the finale obvs, this is more of a universe alteration than an au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-13 17:55:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14753565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neostigmine/pseuds/neostigmine
Summary: you have the suspicion that in an alternate universe she dies instead and there’s some weird, tiny part of you that wishes that’s what happened in this universe rather than... whatever actually happened, like it would have changed anything about the outcome.





	1. make it alright

“and here’s your apartment-” you drop a duffle bag on the floor so you can fumble around for the key, “just as you left it.”

“i’ll take your word for it, daniel,” she shoulders the duffle you dropped, “410?”

“you took a special glee with scoring that unit number. made up for the shitty building.” with that, you open the door with your shoulder and let her in after you. you yank ~~her~~ the key out of the lock, close the door, and drop the rest of the bags by the sofa.

“so?” she asks, making herself right at home on the counter with her half-empty drink from starbucks.

god, it’s almost like she wasn’t a completely blank slate.

  
“so, you don’t want to ask me any questions?”

“i’ll think of some, don’t worry. though,” she takes a sip from her drink, “can you explain to me why this apartment is so clean when everything you told me is to the contrary?”

“we spent the week before we left cleaning it top to bottom so you wouldn’t have to deal with it when we got back,” she takes another sip, almost like she’s thinking about what you just said and how it relates to... everything else you’ve said.

doug had it easier, you think. he had the logs, he had hera and minkowski and lovelace, he had a wealth of pop culture to experience for the first time all over again. hell, even hilbert was slightly helpful.

all she had was... you.

you and some language logs that meant absolutely nothing to anybody except hera and hera was currently trying to deal with the fact that doug was doug and not eiffel.

(you should probably call her at some point, just to check in)

“i had a very... eclectic taste, apparently.”

“mhmm. flea markets and antique stores were your downfall. want the grand tour?” she nods and slides off of the counter.

the “grand tour” lasts all of five minutes (with some choice comments, like you pointing out the hair dye stains on the counter and the sink and going “that’s from when we decided kepler couldn’t fire both of us if we dyed our hair” and “that’s a lovely wine stain you are not getting out of this carpet. not sorry about that, by the way” at the one stain in the corner of the living room peaking out from under the recliner)

“that was nice, daniel,” she says when you’re done giving her the tour of her own damn apartment (not like she remembers), “though you got kind of rushed there at the end-”

and there she goes, psychoanalyzing you as best she can off of snippets given to her by you and the rest of the ragtag band of “friends” you now had.

(you were going to call her after ma- alana fell asleep).

“hey, ‘lana?”

“what?”

“can you... give me a minute? before i answer the heavy shit?”

“go for it!”

you step outside and lean against the railing that separates her fourth floor walk from the void that’s below. this was going to be hard.

you have the suspicion that in an alternate universe she dies instead and there’s some weird, tiny part of you that wishes that’s what happened in this universe rather than... whatever actually happened, like it would have changed anything about the outcome.

(you’re pretty sure you know what you would have done if she was actually gone and she had commented so many times that you took things way too personally and way too far but those were the breaks)

you were one for two on your best friends physically dying, but two for two on them dying in any sense of the word. you were getting there with the stages of grief but it was... hard wasn’t the right word, but there weren’t any words to actually describe how it felt to be talking with alana maxwell when one of you was technically a stranger with barely any personality.

it was weird. you know she isn’t the actual alana maxwell, but there were things that she did that were _definitively_ Alana Maxwell Things, like...

constantly flopping over you at any given moment (mostly on pieces of furniture) like she knows she’s the lone exception to your Thing regarding personal space

or automatically letting you have a sip of her drink

or, even, what she’s doing right now by handing you an already open craft beer you forgot you left in her fridge. it’s like she knew you needed something with an abv above five percent that wasn’t scotch.

“you don’t have to tell me every little detail, you know,” she clinks her bottle against yours, “but it would be nice to know something about-”

“we were pretty fucked up.” it comes out before you can even register what you’re saying.

“i figured, from what they all told me and how hera completely went nuclear at me. did i really do that to her?”

“i’d be lying if i said you didn’t think of it before kepler did with the caveat of ‘just in case she’s testy’ but what she said about how you turned yourself around there? after pryce came?”

“yeah?”

“she meant it. we don’t know what you did, but... we’re all here, mostly.”

the two of you stand there. it feels like eternity and not that long at the same time before she pipes up again.

“did we do this often?” she asks, with the slight hint of naïvety in her voice that you haven’t been able to become accustomed to.

“what? stand here and drink too much?”

“yeah.”

you think you don’t want to tell her any of the shit you two did at the beck and call of goddard futuristics, like you’d be protecting her from whatever revelation she’d have. you know she’s going to find out somehow come hell or high water.

it was just a matter of beating her to the parts of her personnel file that you didn’t want her to see.

“in a way.” you’re folding in on yourself; you know you’re folding in on yourself and if this was the _actual_ maxwell and not shell of her, she would be figuring out a way to get it out of you without being explicit about it.

you think she’s doing that anyway.

she tilts her head and slightly scowls in the way she always did when she was trying to figure out your cryptic bullshit.

“daniel, look at me-” you don’t. “ _daniel_.” she cups your face and forces you to face her.

“what?” you focus on the moth that’s currently attracted to the outdoor light.

“i know you really don’t want to do this-” you roll your eyes, “and i don’t know if you were always so avoidant regarding talking about your emotions, but _i_ need you to be able to do this, okay?”

“this sounds really similar to a speech you gave me before-” she squints.

“was it the one where i slapped you to make a point?”

“yes-” you blink in sudden realization where this might be going, “are you going to slap me?”

“i’m feeling like i should, but i’m not.” she drops her hands from her face and embraces the one that isn’t currently holding a bottle, “i don’t... i don’t like feeling like something is missing and i don’t know how doug and miranda are handling this but i’m doing _very_ poorly emotionally and-”

“we only have room for one emotional breakdown?”

“no, we have room for two but _only_ if they’re not at the same time.” you both stifle laughter. god, it really was like she wasn’t a blank slate and you keep forgetting she’s having to relearn everything.

she pulls you into a hug and you feel a familiar weight resting in the crook of your neck. she’s up on her tiptoes slightly, just enough to reach your neck but not far enough that she would lose her balance after a while.

“we can start tomorrow, if you want.” it comes out more halfhearted than you intended.

“i’d like that.” you feel her smile as she snuggles closer to you.

you like that too, you think.

so yeah, you could start tomorrow. you didn't _want_ to start tomorrow, but-

if she didn't push you into doing this, you never were going to start.


	2. 2:14 am

“hey jacobi, sorry to wake you-”

“you didn’t, hera”

“you need to  _sleep_. i don’t know how you and minkowski are able to-”

“don’t lecture me about my sleeping habits, i already get enough of that from maxwell. anyway, how are you holding up?”

“just peachy, jacobi!”

“you don’t sound peachy.”

“well, doug called me sweetheart the other day and i sent a power surge through the entire house, so, you know, doing fine! everything’s fine i’m fine it’ll be fine-”

“hera. calm down, you’re starting to glitch again.”

“sorry. so, how about you?”

“the same old, she’s been using my thigh as a table for her mouse when she’s on her laptop on the couch-”

“that doesn’t sound so bad!”

“she always did that and i never told her she could do that?”

“oh.”

“yeah.”

[pause, rustle]

“have you told him yet?”

“told him what?”

“told him about anne.”

“well he knows...  _of_  anne...”

“but not the specifics?”

“but not the specifics.”

“that’s going to blow up in your face later, hera.”

“have you told her about her parents?”

“nope.”

“she deserves to know, jacobi-”

“ _i know_ , hera. i just... don’t know how to tell her?”

“well you could start with-”

“she’s going to ask  _why_  she had the stupid thing out and she... she never told me in the first place, so...”

“what are you going to do?”

“i don’t know. attempt to decrypt all of the hard drives she kept her journals on and do a major breach of privacy?”

“sounds like fun.”

“yeah, i guess.”

[heavy sigh]

“things could be worse, jacobi.”

“yeah. they could be dead.”

“are we even settling? for all of this, i mean?”

“i don’t think so- settling would be us just accepting there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell we could get them back.”

“i think we’re just scared they won’t be there when we-”

‘look back?”

“yeah. like we’re orpheus or something. we’ll survive.”

“we’re pretty good at that.”

“we sure are- anyway i’m gonna mull over how i’m gonna break the entirety of anne to ei- doug and i’ll call you back later to run it by you?”

“sounds good. just figure it out before minkowski gets sick and tired of you beating around the bush and does it for you.”

“god i  _know._ she isn’t letting me hear the end of it and she gave me until she gets back from visiting lovelace to figure it out.”

“oh. yeah, i’ll let you get to that.”

“yep. go to sleep, jacobi”

“i won’t! talk to you later, hera.”

"jacobi, seriously, go to-"

[click]

 

 

you glance over at the clock on the microwave.

_2:14_

maybe you should go to sleep.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the all dialogue with zero tags thing i tried to make it as easy to follow as possible? have no idea if i accomplished that but it's how this thing wanted to be written

**Author's Note:**

> title is from sir sly's nowhere/bloodlines pt i. 
> 
> hmu on tumblr at jacobiapologist, my fanmixes are over on playmoss and 8tracks at neostigmine. i have a maxwell/jacobi one that has the second part to bloodlines on it if you wanna give it a listen B)
> 
> i have a small aside thing i might post up as a second chapter but we'll see how i feel about it in like, a week. anyway: maxwell's heel-face turn would've been /so/ good and then i took the idea slightly too far? this is the first of a series of loosely related oneshots born out of the fact that this was done but not Done and didn't lend itself well for a multichap.


End file.
